Edward Guthmann

Floats along on the strength of its writing and supporting cast.

A strange but oddly memorable film.

An elegiac, visually hypnotic film about love, honor, reverence for nature and the loss of tradition.

Unabashedly sentimental, it's meant to touch our hearts in profound and important ways, but misses the mark by drawing too deeply from a pool of schmaltz.

An absorbing look at emotional tyranny, with a great screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Isn't some sober history lesson that bogs down in long speeches and tedious facts. It's about style, it's about fashion, it's about rock 'n' roll busting out in medieval France.

First-time film director Sullivan draws good performances from Goldwyn, Hutton and Parker, as well as Debra Monk, Elizabeth Franz and Eric Bogosian in minor roles.

A lively, ultimately sad portrait.

The Brady Bunch Movie is fairly innocuous, and ought to satisfy the twenty- and thirtysomethings who grew up on the sitcom. Just one problem: It may be unsporting to point this out, but the whole notion of holding up the Bradys as the ultimate cultural icon of the '70s is basically a lie.

Life Stinks will never stand with the classics -- it's basically a diversion -- but its plea for economic equality is well taken. And Brooks, after years of lousy movies, finally seems back on sure footing. [27 July 1991, p.C3]

Dopey but rather sweet. [30 July 1993, p.C1]

A self-indulgent mess.

Stylized dialogue tends to play awkwardly onscreen -- we're conditioned to naturalistic conversation in films -- and Waters, who makes his feature directing debut with The House of Yes, fails to create an emotional tone or attitude to match the characters' goofy repartee.

A time-waster that might be diversionary on a dull cross-Atlantic flight -- but only in the absence of alternatives.

Joel Schumacher, the director of "Falling Down," "The Client" and "Batman Forever," has a strong feel for this kind of glossy pop entertainment and a way of integrating social issues without sacrificing narrative drive.

It's hard to give two hoots about any of these characters.

I'm not quite sure what David Cronenberg is trying to say in Crash, but whatever it is, he deserves a lot of credit for having the nerve to put it on screen and face the consequences.

Pool captures the crazed urgency of first love -- the feeling of a passion so fierce that even a disapproving society can't crush it.

It's a weird movie, in that spooky/sicko, deadpan way that Lynch's movies always are, and it's guaranteed to repel anyone who likes entertainment wrapped in tidy resolutions and optimistic fade- outs.

The Hudsucker Proxy is the Coens' fifth feature in a decade, and you can see their tremendous artistic growth in every frame of the film. Classically composed, beautifully shot by Roger Deakins ("Barton Fink") and co-produced by legendary action-flick producer Joel Silver, Hudsucker has technique and visual invention to spare. [11 Mar 1994, p.C3]

About American anti-Semitism, but it's not a typical genteel "cause" movie.

Small kids ought to love this entry, but die-hard Muppet fans are likely to find it tepid and uneventful -- a minor addition to the Muppet canon.

Hollywood warhorse Norman Taurog directed Elvis eight times and had a knack for dragging decent performances from the boy. [03 Aug 1997, p.34]

Surprisingly tepid and soapy.

Despite the awkward, stomach- churning camera movements and the grainy, flat images that come with insufficient lighting, the actors' work is often riveting and compelling.

Light and innocuous.

The few bright moments in Housesitter are supplied by Martin, who works himself into a sweat trying to make this movie work -- he even squeezes laughs out of a wedding reception scene, when he warbles an Irish melody to his dad -- and by Moffat and Harris, who give their Norman Rockwell stick figures a bumbling, simple charm. [12 June 1992, p.D1]

Murphy, who started directing movies in his native Australia, does a good job of locomoting Under Siege 2 at a lively, muscular clip.